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The Flats Wizard in N.I.N.A. - Flats made easy!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ค. 2020
- I'm finally trying out the Flats wizard in N.I.N.A. and man is it good! I'd even go as far as recommending it to others using other capture software, just for the flats!
Flat frames are important for astrophotography, so don't skip on them if you can!
#astrophotography
You know what, I just reached a point where I am a newbie with NINA. Learning about using LRGB/SHO filters and my new gear looking for a way to improve my workflow. Noticed that NINA had a flat wizard but not sure how to proceed. I literally just googled for it and Low an behold! A tutorial on the flat wizard. thanks again for the coverage on using NINA; and the positive vibes! Clear Skies
Thanks Cuiv for another very informative and useful video. You have some of the best tutorials on TH-cam
Thank you! Glad it's helping!
Hey Cuiv, I just tried NINA for dark and light flats and you are right... very slick! This takes all the guesswork out of calibration frames. Also wanted to tell you I think your videos are a joy to watch for three reasons: First, you have such positive energy and obviously having fun. That is absolutely infectious. Secondly, you are talking about something that matters to your audience: the topics you choose are often issues we struggle with in AP, and you offer timely solutions. Third, your explanations are excellent. You make this stuff easy to understand without gobbling up a lot of time on each of your videos. Other similar channels add high-end visual effects, music and other refinements but if you did that you'd be too busy working on videos with not enough time under the stars and we would have to call you "Cuiv the Over-extended Geek".
I think it shows that NINA is really a labor of love... I think it's amazing software overall! And on your feedback, thank you so much, it means a lot to me. I love teaching people, and I love learning from all the comments, so this TH-cam adventure has been and continues to be a lot of fun! I'm being careful about no over-extending myself, it's true that with more and more viewers I get solicited more and more! Thanks so much for this :-)
I agree with Mitch. Cuiv hank you again. And Mitch great PixiniSight tutorials.
Thanks Salomon ...
You are welcome! I really need to watch Mitch's tutorials, there is so much I need to learn!
Hello Cuiv, with this virus quarintain, NINA has been a wonderful surprise to me, so I will be moving from sap, your videos are super keep this way! Regards from Monterrey Mexico
Wow, Mexico! Really on the opposite side of the world :) Glad you are enjoying NINA! I hope you'll get the hang of it quickly. Good luck and clear skies!
Great video, it’s an awesome addition to Nina. Used it for the first time this week and was really impressed!
Same here! I had no role in the creation of the Flats Wizard but darn I am impressed by it!
Thanks again. Looking forward to having you back
Excellent video. I switch to the flat wizard method when I first got into NINA. Great implementation. Again Cuiv, Superbe explanation
Thank you! Very happy so many asked me to cover it, because I really like it now :)
Thanks for covering the flats wizard. It's somewhat like SGP, but I like how it incorporates the dark flats automatically. Great video.
No worries! It was a fun thing to test and discover! The dark flats automation definitely calls to my lazy nature :) Despite owning SGP (and paying for the upgrade to v3!) I have never tried their flats wizard (just like I had never tried NINA's!)
Great video Cuiv. Can't believe that I actually overlooked the Flat Wizard in the UI.
I tried this last night and I will always use flats from now on.
Heck yeah!
All your videos are great! Thank you Cuiv, I really appreciate all your efforts!
Woohoo, thank you for the support!
Very well explained! Thx for that :)
My pleasure! :D thanks for watching!
Your the Best 😉👍👍👍
I, uh, no *blushes and goes hide under a table*
You have been my teacher and guidance in all things N.I.N.A. I started using it a few days ago and I LOVE it!!! I just needed to learn how to use the flat wizzard and this video explains exactly how it can be done. One thing I thought I might be missing from SGP was its Flat Wizzard, but N.I.N.A.s wizzard is way far superior.
Awesome Wanda! I'm glad we got you away from SGP *shivers* :) I also have a more recent video on flats where I also use the flat wizard!
Thanks Cuiv for the helpful video. I have SGP but recently downloaded N.I.N.A. and learning more about it with your videos. Keep up the good work on these videos which are very well done!
Great video thank you. I'm seriously considering switching from APT to n.i.n.a
Thank you Daniel! My advice is always to not switch unless something in your current solution leaves you dissatisfied (I think for APT, people complain about the lack of AutoFocus?) - but if you do switch to NINA, be sure to test it out during the day as much as possible to avoid losing precious imaging time! Good luck & Clear skies!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek thank you and appreciate the advice. Yep apt focus isnt great, I also dont like the framing either. But I do like a lot of other features it has. N.i.n.a just looks like a fresh modern UI, going to download tonight on my desktop and have a play
Another tip my friend shared about using a white panel - between exposure(s), rotate the panel - think of it like "dithering" to even out the panel's own uneven lights, or just repeat a few times but rotate the panel randomly
Huh, I hadn't thought of that, but for unevenly illuminated panels, it should indeed help. Very nice idea, thank you!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek The same mechanism at play because we stack images. My friend just move the panel between exposures
A great deal of help to me to get even more out of NINA and my AP. One small request, can you go into Mono camera use more please? I began with OSC cameras, but I struggling along with my first Monochrome camera and have discovered a ZWO ASI 1600MM Pro is just the ticket with NINA. It runs every aspect of my equipment, Cameras, Filter Wheel, ASI EAF, and Losmandy Mount. NINA does not even begin to work with my Atik Infinity OSC. Sad, because the Atik has worked well for me manually. But I'm doing my best to run remotely from inside the house, via WiFi. I find myself turning to your videos more and more as I go along with my AP. Thanks for your great tutorials. I love TH-cam because I can stop, back up, and zero in to find the answers to my confusions. Oh, I'm using NINA 2.1 currently.
Keep them coming!
Will do! Thank you!
In Ekos you just set the desired ADU number, it's similar to NINA, so easy to take flats when it's an automated process.
I hear a lot of good things about EKOS, it seems to be extremely powerful. I'll probably try it some day!
I love NINA but I miss the option to save the flat wizard results as a sequence like you do in SGP. Perhaps the option will be included in the future.
So I just used N.I.N.A. for the first time just for the flats wizard (I use Asiair Pro for imaging). My question is where and how did you get NINA to save the flats and darkflats to their own folders? The only place I can see to set a folder location is in Imaging...and its just for imaging, not for specific image types. NINA then just saves all my flats and dark flats in that one folder.
Never had an issue with short flats on my 294mc pro, never heard of it. But I will try longer flats anyway and compare them. I use APT, led panel on highest brightness, set an ADU value and hit run, it works well for me.
I'm glad it's all been working well for you! Try googling "ASI294MC Flats" and you'll find tons of threads with such issues! In the end, I remember seeing posts by ZWO saying to keep flats above 1s. But then I've noticed there seems to be a bit of variability between 294 sensors (much more than other cameras), so you might simply have gotten a great sample! If it ain't broke, don't fix it! :-)
Hello again Kurt, really enjoying your videos regarding NINA and very interesting that you are a developer for the software. One major problem I have with the wizard flat master is it never seems to resolve an exposure for me. The light is either too bright or too dim and I cannot seem to find the centre between the extremes. I control the brightness of my flat panel with Pegasus pocket powerbox. Moving to 5% power to 7% power gives me the results I have indicated. Is there any chance I can control the flat box through NINA communicating directly with the pocket powerbox for finer control. Peagsus does not allow me to go below 5% power but maybe with the more sophisticated NINA software an improvement could be attained?
""The light is either too bright or too dim "" now where have i seen this before ? oh yea NINA , so i add paper under my light but above the tube on a acrylic opaque 5 mm sheet. 8X8
then i shoot my frames till my histo is 45% by adding or subtracting printing paper .. sometimes it 3 sheets other time its 8 . depends on the light source.
Mitch provides very valid advice here - unfortunately I can't give more details on the NINA side of things, and flats is not an area I worked on... But you could ask on the NINA Discord. My first intuition would be that since NINA uses the flat panel's driver to adjust brightness, it probably will have the same limitations as the panel maker software does. But you can try it out! Just download the latest NINA Beta, and try to connect to the PegasusAstro flat panel from the equipment tab. Again, sorry, I have very little knowledge in this area.
- Cuiv
@@BrokenPik I have several pieces of paper and the program still tells me that I am either too dim or too bright. I have used perspex sheeting and still the same. I have used the power reducer to almost minimum with the same result. But thank you for your advice.
@@PeterClarke55 Peter, something else is going on here , we need more info , like Gain / offsets settings .. then if you can do the same thing in SGP or APT and see how it handles the Flats exposure times / ADU / Histogram % ....
Thanks for doing this video! Explains some questions I had about the Flats Wizard. Got 1 questions....(1) just covering the OTA is sufficient for darks? i.e. on concern of leaks? (2) You have more dark flats than flats? I always thought that # of dark flats should match the # of flats.
No worries! So, on covering the OTA - this particular OTA has been impressive in avoiding light leaks - but in real life I would turn off my balcony light before taking the flat darks. Although I find it's fine like that. I do try to avoid taking my darks during the daytime (even under the telescope cover) as I've seen this can lead to issues (at least for me).
Just realized I forgot part 2 of the question: No, the number of dark flats should not match the number of flats - just like you can never have too many dark frames to calibrate your lights, you can never have too many flat dark frames to calibrate your flats! In the latter scenario, your flats are your signal (e.g. they're lights that just so happen to represent your optical system characteristics), and your flat darks are what can help with any noise that could be injected by flats calibration back into the image.
Cuiv, quick question on flats in a sequence: Is it worthwhile adding rows to the sequence and selecting the appropriate exposure type and specifying the calculated exposure time Flat Wizard? I'm guessing it is probably just as easy to run the wizard every time one needs to shoot flats, for example after the light frames have been captured and keeping filter and other camera settings the same as for the lights. This way it looks like you get a folder called "FlatWizard" in the same folder as the one NINA uses to collect all the frames called for in the sequence. What works best for you?
That sounds like a good idea Dave! In the end, I sometimes use the Flats Wizard, sometimes I just use a sequence, where I manually adjust my flat panel to always have flats that are 1.5s long. It doesn't matter that much really, and neither is a lot of work. In the end, the results would be the same, so it's up to individual preference :-)
Hi Cuiv Question: With a Flat light box I took a set of flats using NINA's Flats Wizard and a set of flats using NINA's sequencer. Loading a file from each set into PixInsight I expected to see similar images. But the Flats Wizard image was consistently gray with no shading or vinetting while the Sequencer image had the more typical venetting and shading around the edges like I'd expect. Does NINA's Flats Wizard do something to the flat images that creates a plan gray image? Thanks!
NINA doesn't do anything to the images, just records them as is...
Hi Cuiv
Great video again look forward to trying it soon. One question, When loading Flats, Darks, Bias and Flat darks into Pixinsight what Tab do you use for each? As you know there is no Tab for Flat darks and I already have my Darks in the darks Tab.
Many thanks Ken
In WBPP I have Flat Darks in the Darks tab, and I check the "calibrate flats with flat darks" checkbox. You can see the whole process here: th-cam.com/video/9PQKC5SIhKw/w-d-xo.html
Love N.I.N.A. and your various videos, you explain everything clear and thorough. I have one question, in this video, your saved flats and dark flats are saved in separate columns in the same file, flats then dark flats. When I do mine, the flats and dark flats are saved in the same file but one after the other,i.e.: flat, darkflat, flat, darkflat, flat and so on. I know I am setting something up wrong but is you could tell me what I need to do as it is a real pain to select the files for processing........
I was unable to find a link that showed how you copy the files from your PC on the telescope to your Imaging PC in the house. Can you please provide a link to that video. Thank you
I am taking flats in Sharpcap and it makes master flat automatically. However, they often not effective. Do you think something wrong in such approach? It is definitely faster than taking flats in NINA.
I just found this video, after watching many of your newer ones, and this is really great. Your channel has helped me a lot, as I have the ASI533mc too. When I import into PI WBPP I have to do it as custom as Nina doesn’t seem to tag them with the exp time etc. Is that correct? Cheers John.
Now that's weird actually, I don't have such issues - maybe something to check in the NINA Discord channel?
Nice video for capturing flat frames. But what does slew to Zenith means? I thought Zenith is name of a star
Zenith is the point right above your head, 90 degrees from the horizon in any direction
Great content as usual. The wizard looks very useful. Do you always cool your camera for flats?
Yes! You camera should be cooled for flats! Thermal noise is drastically reduced by cooling, and yes, thermal noise also affects flats to some extent - plus that way you are sure that your flat darks are at the same temperature as your flats.
Cuiv, How did you set it to save in a different folder for each flat type? Mine just saves where the lights were saved, thanks!
Which flat light panel are you using? Is it connected via USB and are you controlling the flat panel settings with NINA or different software?
I use an Artesky flat box - I chose the one without USB control, so I control it with just the knob (I'm kind of old fashioned like that - since flats is one of the activities I have to do manually anyway, not having a dome or anything of the kind). You can find all the details here: th-cam.com/video/HXZU27vEwEs/w-d-xo.html
thanks
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Hi Cuiv, I'm setting up in NYC, talk about Bortle 9. Plenty you can do anyway right? Wondering, besides the Artesky do you know of any USB flat panels that play nice with NINA? I was looking at a Pegasus pegasusastro.com/products/flatmaster/
Thanks for this great video. Does the focus need to be the same as light's focus when taking flat frames with a CCD or only the orientation of the camera has to be the same as the lights for the flats to be effective?
As long as the focus is not too different, it doesn't affect flats - so temperature or filter offset related changes do not affect the flats! Orientation of the camera and filter is the important one.
Thank you. Appreciate your time and knowledge as well as tremendous effort. You’re awesome
what about focus?
Have you housed these flat frames on an image to see how they perform? Would like to see a video about that.
I have - they worked very well! I can indeed have a calibration video - I need to retake flats for my side by side NB setup anyway! Thanks for the suggestion!
Cuiv, The Lazy Geek damn autocorrect. But you got the message. Looking forward to see the flats in action. Thanks for all the information in your videos.
I am coming from SGP where you basically run the flat wizard once to get the right values, and those are then stored in SGP, so if you set a flat-sequence it will just use those numbers.. do i understand correctly that in NINA you'd run the flat-wizard with each sequence/session?
I haven't used the latest version of the flats wizard much (and never used the one in SGP), but yes that's the case. However the NINA algorithm is very optimized - the initial measurement is a couple of seconds, so it doesn't change much in practice vs storing the values (also, for me, with my variable brightness panel, I wouldn't want to use stored values)
@@CuivTheLazyGeek thanks, that's good to know.. I'm just testing with NINA right now and so far really like it, but just have to find and get used to the differences to SGP. Thanks for all your videos, that's really helpful information, that makes the transition much easier :)
Great Video Cuiv! Thanks so much for all of the videos that you do. They are very helpful
A couple of questions - I'm coming from SGP which has (in my opinion) a really good Flats Wizard, because you can determine the correct flat exposure for each camera/gain/filter combination - AND - save that information in a profile so that the exposures determined by the Flat Wizard can be recalled when shooting flats in the future without having to re-determine the proper exposure each time you shoot flats. It seems that this is not the case with the NINA Flat Wizard - am I understanding correctly? If not - do you have to re-establish the parameters for the filters in the flat wizard each time you shoot flats, or does it remember those settings for future runs? AND - if it does remember the settings - does it associate that information with the profile being used when shooting them?
I have 2 ZWO cameras and 4 different Imaging configurations - so that is potentially 8 different combinations to keep up with - so I am really hoping things are saved with the profile.
SGP has its issues - but I think the Flat Wizard is one of the best features in that product.
Thanks again!
John
I don't think NINA remembers the settings, but it is so quick in determining the right exposure time (not trial and error, but calculation) that it probably adds maybe 5 seconds per filter to find that. So really not a big deal! Aaaaah SGP reminds me of the good old days... :)
thanks very interesting vidéo .Now i m using Stellarmate instead of NINA Stellarmate in the only software witch detected may BrightStar FW ! for info what type is youtyour processor pc I7 ?
I'm in the camp of "whatever software works for you" so I'm glad Stellarmate is working for you! It does look like a great piece of software! My computer is an i5 - I actually have more information about it in a video coming up sometime next week!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek thanks, i have a QHY183C i' m in Toulouse's suburbian , light pollution, next topic for me short capture of galaxies 5s max with 10" telescope without autoguiding ! it s a challenge !! will you ok for a world's direct live astronomy ?? from tokyo , Toulouse France , USA ?? or other country ..
@@CuivTheLazyGeek like mine i5 but with QHY183C too much failed ! so i use stellarmate on RPI4 for the scope and guiding and I5 PC for only QHY183C and it's working ??
Took me sometime to get NINA to stop complaining about over exposure. I used to use a blank Word document on my tablet but that is now way too bright even at the lowest light level. Now, oddly, NINA likes 6 sheets of copy paper in front of the lens. Seems to work well when integrating everything so I don't complain.
Interesting... It should not be linked to NINA - If you find that you need more sheets of paper than with other apps, make sure to double check you have the same gain in the camera! But if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek The flats are very dark but they produce a good stacked image. I was thinking of a flats panel but they are SO EXPENSIVE for what they are. I can get a 65 in TV for the same price.
So since the dark flats contains the bias information you do not take bias frames correct?
That's correct - that's my way of doing things. And with cooled cameras, flat darks (couple of seconds long) approximate bias frames very closely, so could even be used instead of bias frames. I typically just take darks, flats, flats darks, and use them as their name indicates!
Cuiv, thank you for this helpful video! I have an ASI6200MM and the file sizes are quite huge. Rather than fix the panel brightness and adjust exposure times per filter, I would prefer to fix the exposure time and adjust panel brightness per filter. This would allow me to have a single set of dark-flats and save an enormous amount of disk-space. Is there anything flawed in this thinking? If not, I am kind of surprised it is not an option in NINA and other similar automated-flat-acquisition capabilities in other software pacakges. Are you aware of anything out there that would do this?
I would just do it manually - in the imaging tab, just adjust the panel brightness for one filter until you get your exposure length, then take a sequence, rinse and repeat. It typically takes 15 minutes for all 7 of my filters.
Hi there I know it’s the wrong video to ask this question... can I image with a canon camera on NINA? It only has Nikon... also where is the ISO settings? Thank you
I believe you can indeed image with a Canon Camera on NINA - ISO would then be in the Equipment tab. You may want to join the Discord channel and ask there! Good luck!
Cuiv, The Lazy Geek i was looking for ISO but nothing thanks I’ll che k out Discord
When I press slew to zenith it doesn’t move and then settles. I have the scope unparked. Any obvious reason this may be happening? Thanks!
Extremely hard to tell without having more details - this would be better asked in the help channels of the NINA Discord. I hope you can get it figured out! Good luck!
Cuiv, thanks for the video.. I just got the 1600MM Pro and tried your settings in the wizard and no matter what I did it kept telling me the light was too bright. I use a tablet PC with an all white screen and a t-shirt. I got up to 6 layers of t-shirt and it still told me it was too bright. In the end I pointed the scope to a bright flood light on my deck with the 6 layers of t-shirt and that allowed the wizard to start and finish. This is not ideal can you please tell me what is happening. Oh I am also only 8 months into the hobby. I have subscribed as I like the content.
You want the flats to be 1/3 or 1/2 of the histogram. This is determine by brightness of the light source, focal ratio of the scope, and gain/offset of the camera. If the light source is too bright, you won't be able to achieve your target - you'd need to lower the gain on the camera for instance (and make sure the dark flats are taken at the same gain).
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Thank you for the quick reply.. One last question.. I thought my all of my calibration frames had to be at the same Gain as my lights, is this not the case?
@@chitownxring1444 Flats are effectively a type of light frames. As long as their calibration frames (the flat darks) are the same gain, offset, temp, etc. as the flat frames, it should work. Of course it's easier to get confused then.
Are 5 dark flats and 5 flats all you take? How many darks as well? Thanks.
This was just for the example! I typically take 25 flats, and something like 50 flat darks.
Can NINA do flat frames with dslr?
In 6 mths Cuiv will have 6000 subscribers
making flats is a mean monster, but i also figured out that 50% dont cut it. so i shoot 40-45% or 18500 ADU on the ASI 1600MM and no shorter then 1 sec ( 2 or 3 sec better) other wise your making Bias frames of a sort .. on my AA183IMX its 12 bit so i shoot 1850 ADU or 45% of 4094 FW.
6000 subs... that sounds frightening... I'm already getting swamped with just 500 subs! But it's so much fun at the same time, I feel so honored. You know, for the 1600MM-C, at first I used 12,000 to 16,000 ADU (out of the 65,000 available, as the camera reports 16 bits to the computer), and that worked great as well. The flats are normalized using the mean of the flat while being applied... so in theory any flat that both swamps the read noise and doesn't over-expose anything should work fine (I think, I may be wrong of course).
@@CuivTheLazyGeek yes , and i wish that were true with DSLR flats , even it actually is they are harder to make even in AV mode, because the rear LCD histogram is a compressed JPG and is not the true RAW file and is under exposed .. I hate flats LOL
Great video as always! Where did you get that great LED flat screen?
Thanks Ken! It is the Artesky Flat Field Generator, which I absolutely love. You can see more of it here: th-cam.com/video/HXZU27vEwEs/w-d-xo.html . There are also computer controlled versions. If you want to buy it, and you are in the US, note that I now have affiliate links through OPT, and if you wish to support me at the same time (phew, lots of conditions), you could get it from here: bit.ly/3jtj8of (but really, if you do buy it, get it wherever is cheap and convenient :D)
Does that end up using recorded focus points?
For an autofocus?
Hey Cuiv, I tried twice to use the flats wizard so far and been having this weird issue. I have the ASI1600 like you but for some reason it does not start off with the 65000 ADU. When I set the Histogram Mean Target to 30%, the value is 1200 rather than 19000. It is as if it thinks the max ADU is 4000 rather than 65000. Any ideas? Thanks Kurt
Hey Kurt! I'm wondering whether in the equipment options (I think, I don't have NINA running right now) you put the camera as 12 bits - that could explain the issue. As the 1600 reports its results as 16 bit, from NINA's POV that's what it should be. Hopefully that should fix it? Good luck and clear skies!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Cuiv your a genius! That's exactly what is was. Thanks for the 20,000 km diagnosis. - Cheers Kurt